1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a mobile operating environment, and more particularly, to visually identifying visual media content captured by a camera-enabled mobile device.
2. Background
Over several decades, developments in digital image processing have attempted to automate certain vision capabilities, such as image recognition. Computer vision has attempted to recognize obstacles in order to allow for autonomous navigation. Optical character recognition relies upon techniques such as detecting a skew in an image and performing character shape correlations. Surveillance systems attempt to recognize biometric data such as faces in order to maintain security.
One example of image processing is generating a digital key signature for each known segment of a video broadcast program that can be later matched by a digital key signature generated for an unknown segment. Such techniques were used for automated tracking by broadcast advertisers to see what commercials were aired in particular markets. Such processing benefited from being able to sample a high fidelity version of the broadcast video signal. In addition, such sampling and analysis could be performed by equipment that had a high processing capacity for the time. As such, the image processing was performed by devices that were generally not mobile nor intended for consumer use.
Advances in technology have resulted in smaller and more powerful computing devices. For example, there currently exist a variety of portable personal computing devices, including wireless computing devices, such as portable wireless telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and paging devices that are small, lightweight, and easily carried by users. More specifically, portable wireless telephones, such as cellular telephones and Internet Protocol (IP) telephones, can communicate voice and data packets over wireless networks. Further, many such wireless telephones include other types of devices that are incorporated therein.
Digital signal processors (DSPs), image processors, and other processing devices are frequently used in portable personal computing devices that include digital cameras, or that display image or video data captured by a digital camera. Such processing devices can be utilized to provide video and audio functions, to process received data such as image data, or to perform other functions. Digital imaging technology allows for compact devices to capture image data, as well as enhance and transmit image data.
Instances can arise where a user is consuming media content in some venue, but would like to watch or read that data on the go, on their mobile device. Desiring to continue watching or reading this content after leaving the venue, the user desires to easily locate this content without an extensive search. This can be especially true given a lack of direct access to the source of the media content. In addition, unlike audio recognition, numerous complications can arise in performing automated vision recognition of a segment of media content. Trying to capture an image or video segment through a viewfinder of a portable personal computing device can be complicated by the orientation of the image and extraneous images within the field of view.